Vin's Race reports and a couple pics

On June 24 I raced in the Tupper Lake Tinman 1/2 iron distance race 1.2 mi swim/56 mi bike/ 13.1 mi run. The day started off at around 7:00 with a dense fog that prevented seeing even the first buoy on the swim course. But within 45 minutes the fog lifted and it turned to a bluebird day. The water was a refreshing and wetsuit legal 72 deg. I was in the 3rd wave out with about 150 others in my wave. As the horn sounded all 150 swimmers stated a mad sprint to get into a space and get a rhythm started. I had a decent amount of body contact during the first 1/4 mile but after that it become a bit more spaced out and didn't really have much trouble with bumping into people until the fast swimmers from the waves behind me caught up. When that happens you tend to have people swimmng over the backs of your legs and stuff like that. It sounds alot worse than it is. Some people do kind of freak out when that happens but for me it is now just part of the day. I exited the water feeling pretty good with a 39:50 for 1.2 mi. Which is a bit slow for me. I need to learn how to swim faster and keep a straighter line. All the course corrections cost me some time.

I had a good transition and headed out on the bike. My goal for the bike was to keep it under 3 hours (~19 mph). For those that don't know where Tupper Lake is, it is in the Adirondacks of NY state. "Rolling terrain" is kind of an understatement since we aer in the Adirondacks after all. There were a few decent sized climbs but nothing too huge. I felt really good on the bike and immediately started passing many racers. At the turn around (28 mi) I was 1:20 into the ride averaging well over 20 mph. But as soon as we make the turn I realized there had been a light tailwind with us. I was thinking "I don't think I can hold this speed for another 28 mi with a headwind." But to my suprise I was only 3 minutes slower on the return and ended the bike with a 2:43(20.6 mph ave) for 56 miles. The bike felt easy to me, probably too easy.............

As I exited the second transition I was feeling pretty good. My goal was to run about a 8 min/mi pace. My first mile was a 7:45 mostly uphill, not bad but I decided this was still a bit too fast and slowed to my goal pace of 8:00 which I held for about the next 4-5 miles and then proceeded to blow up. I slowed to an 8:30 pace then 8:45 by mile 8. The last 5 miles were a struggle. I felt like my legs were going to fall off. I wasn't even breathing hard, I just had no gas left. By the end of the run my pace was well over 9min/mi and ended the run with a 1:58 (9:01/mi ave). My overall time of 5:24:07 was still within my goal range of 5- 5.5 hrs so I pretty happy with than and I'll chalk the explosion on the run up to a learning process. I think I could have gone slightly slower on the bike and not have lost quite so much time on the run. I also need to eat more on the bike. I probably only took in ~550-600 calories on the bike and I should have been closer to 750. I also need to learn how to swim faster and straighter.

Here's a pic of me at the finish
still managing a small but painful smile

But overall I am very happy with my performance and just glad to have achieved my goal of completeing a 1/2 iron race.

The following week, I entered a sprint tri, which got turned in to a duathlon due to the fact that the water in that part of Lake Champlain we were going to be swimming in was not fit for swimming....ick... So it turned into a run-bike-run format of 3.1mi-15mi-3.1 mi. I PR'd the first 5K run in a time of 20:38, had a pretty decent bike and then kind of slowed with a second run of ~23 min. I ended up with a sore hamstring from the second run that is still kind of nagging. But I was 18 overall with a time of ~1:29 and change

This past Sunday was yet again another race day for me. This time in Fairlee, VT. I raced there last year as well and it is such a nice lake and well organized race I decided to go back sore hammy and all. This is a slightly longer race, olympic distance. But this year it was shorter than last due to some poor road conditions on part of the bike course. Distances were .75S/17B/5R.
Yet again my typical race routine went into effect slow swim 238/600, fast bike 90/600, and ok on the run 168/600. I ended up 151/600 overall and about halfway up in my age group.

That's it for me I think until after the baby comes and I get to see exactly how tired I can really be.

Thanks for reading

Vin